Volume 15, Number 3
Fall 2003

Two efforts are streaming along that could pose serious problems for Idaho Wildlands. They are the Owyhee Initiative and discussion around the Boulder-White Clouds. While some conservation groups have been involved in meetings with wilderness opponents, others have been very concerned about the parameters of these discussions and their implications.

No more than 250,000 acres of the Boulder White Clouds would get Wilderness protection via the Owyhee Initiative, although for decades conservationists have fought shoulder to shoulder to designate over 500,000 acres.

Nearly 40 organizations signed a letter to the Idaho Conservation League, Wilderness Society and the Sierra Club—the conservation organizations involved in the Owyhee Initiative. The letter stated, "We are extremely concerned about both the short-term and long-term implications of the OI (Owyhee Initiative) in terms of public involvement, possible circumvention of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), Wilderness policy, grazing administration, potential public land disposals/exchanges, and other areas."

The Owyhee Initiative also involves ranchers, off road vehicle interests, and county officials. Membership in this committee is limited; though meetings are open they are not publicly announced.

Specific problems include designating only some of the BLM Wilderness Study Areas as Wilderness, the possibility that special language could be inserted that makes the Owyhee Wilderness less than real wilderness, the possibility of land exchanges without the full benefit of unbiased public input and analysis, and special advisory committees to review livestock grazing decisions. Groups like Western Watersheds Project and Committee for the High Desert have been successful in challenging unwise grazing practices and the grazing committee could reverse or slow those gains.

The openness of the Owyhee Initiative has been questioned as well. According to some media accounts, the aforementioned Western Watersheds Project and Committee of the High Desert were apparently excluded from being participants in this process at the insistence of the county and ranchers. One has to question the legitimacy of a process that purposely excludes certain people from being committee members.

Furthermore, public lands are just that, PUBLIC lands. Special committees like this turn public interest into special interests and de-legitimize public processes and public land by substituting the normal open public processes with elite committees.

Idaho's congressman Simpson (R) has been pushing a bad idea of giving away public lands to Custer County in exchange for Wilderness designation on the Boulder White Clouds. While nothing has been finalized yet, the details that are emerging from this effort cause great alarm. Wilderness supporters have been quoted in recent media reports as being very disturbed by this possibility. After all, the great Idaho conservationist Ted Trueblood was the catalyst over twenty years ago that defeated the sagebrush rebellion, a horrible scheme that would have stolen public lands from the American people and given them to state governments for eventually transfer to corporate and private interests.

The Idaho Conservation League (ICL), one of the organizations that have encouraged Simpson to pursue Wilderness legislation on the Boulder White Clouds, recently sent him a letter expressing opposition to the idea of giving away some 16,000 acres of public land to designate the Boulder White Clouds. ICL also expressed disappointment with the preliminary proposal that would only designate less than half of the roadless land in the Boulder-White Clouds as Wilderness.

The Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act (NREPA) is the visionary proposal for this bioregion, including the Boulder White Clouds. Conservationists should be wary of processes that replace the Wild Rockies with the Mild Rockies. Milderness is not real Wilderness.

Picture: pioneer.tif Credit: Jonathan Stoke Caption: Pioneer Mountains - Unprotected roadless areas in South-Central Idaho are threatened by politics.

Picture: whitecloud.tif Credit: Lee Mercer Caption: Boulder White Clouds Ð No more than 250,000 acres of the Boulder White Clouds would get wilderness protection, although for decades conservationists have fought shoulder to shoulder to designate over 500,000 acres.